Case Study on Selection

Selecting Manufacturing Employee:

In the United States, Toyota uses a selection assessment test designed to hire
individuals to be employed as Toyota auto workers Called the “Day of Work, “this
test is the most grueling part of a hiring process that can take months. At Toyota
plants in Kentucky and West Virginia, the Day of Work is used regularly. Starting
at 6:30 a.m., applicants work on a simulated assembly line for 4 hours and then
spend several hours inspecting parts for defects. They also participate in a group
problem-solving session and take written tests. This is all necessary just to be
considered for a job at Toyota. Another process is used by Carrier Corporation,
which makes compressors for air conditioners with its workforce of 150 at its
Arkadelphia, Arkansas, plant. If someone wants a job there, he or she must
complete a six-week course before even being considered for employment. The
selection process weeds out 15 of every 16 applicants and provides Carrier
Corporation with a top-quality workforce. High school graduates take a state test
for job applicants first. Only one-third advance to the next step. References are
closely checked, and then the applicants are interviewed both by managers and by
the assembly line workers with whom they will work. Those applicants who have
satisfactory interviews take a six-week course that meets five nights a week for
three hours, with some extra Saturdays. Attendees learn to read blueprints, do math
(including metric calculations and statistical process control), use a computer, and
engage in problem solving with others. At the end of the course, the applicants
have not been hired (or paid) and have no assurance that they will be.But this
approach does not work everywhere or all the time. During a year, Lincoln Electric
considered more than 20,000 job applicants and rejected most of them—yet it has
empty positions that it needs to fill. Very few of those who applied at Lincoln
Electric could do trigonometry (even at the high school level) or read technical
drawings. Those skills were needed for even entry-level work.
Questions
1. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages associated with Toyota’s “Day of
Work” approach.
2. When using teams to interview applicants, as Carrier Corporation does, what
potential problems might exist with the use of invalid predictors and inter rater
reliability?